the Hunter and his Angel
by xIrelandx
Summary: Dean x Cas. Part of the 30 Day OTP Challenge. Some background Jody x Bobby and Sam x Meg.
1. Chapter 1

Dean has never been touchy-feely, but Cas is newly human. Physical affection has always been a mystery to him, because he's always craved it. Now that he's completely lost his grace, he's also lost his balance. He trips over everything, bruises like a damn peach, and cries. Constantly. Cas gets most of physical affection needs fulfilled by Sam, who gives him pats on the back and high-fives, and Charlie, who has gotten super into hugging. (She's not attracted to Cas in that way, obviously, but she does seem to view him as a rather large teddy bear. Which, Dean supposes, he is.) Still, Cas looks nervously at Dean, eyes wandering, as though trying to figure out how to touch him but not knowing how.

Dean isn't going to give in anytime soon. He gave Cas a hug when he found him back in Purgatory, but the dude didn't reciprocate. If Cas wants some sort of connection, he's either gotta ask for it or act on it. Besides, how the hell is Dean supposed to know what the former Angel wants? He's not a damn mind-reader.

* * *

Meg comes back, about four days after all hell has broken loose. Bobby comes back the day after her, and both have decided touching is an in-bounds thing to do as well. Bobby has a hug for everybody that Dean grunts through, only returning the hug when Bobby threatens him with pictures of him in that stupid 'I Wuv Hugs' tee shirt. It's not that Dean minds hugging, but (despite his penchant for sex with random people) he's a very private person. Meg gives him a punch in the arm, gives Cas a quick kiss that leaves him blinking in confusion (and Dean looking around the room awkwardly), and then she gives Sam a big hug. Nobody seems able to determine where that came from, since Cas is her unicorn.

Dean is convinced that some sort of romance is going to start up between Cas and Meg, but unless they're being secretive about it, no dice. Meg makes a couple of references to the pizza man that make Sam and Dean both vaguely uncomfortable, but Cas seems to have lost whatever spark was there. Meg doesn't seem quite as smitten anymore either, although it's hard to tell with demons. Jody Mills is the one bringing in all the love, really; once she hears Bobby's returned, she and Garth high-tail it to Bobby's house from wherever they've been to, and Sheriff Mills not only hugs Bobby but give shim a full-on kiss on the mouth. Bobby is clearly surprised but returns it with enthusiasm. Garth whistles, and Sam groans at it. ("Time and place, Garth," Dean hears Sam say. "You should tell that to them," Meg defends with an inclined head.)

When Dean looks anywhere but at Bobby and Jody, he sees Cas leaning against a door frame, studying him. He's been wearing some of Dean's clothes and some of Sam's because he hasn't got any of his own. He's got some peach fuzz growing in again. He looks almost normal, and almost distinctly not like the Cas Dean accepted as his family three years ago (or is it four?).

When Cas's eyes catch Dean's, he looks away.

* * *

Sam once told Dean to drop the gruff because Cas was Cas. Dean defended his hurt feelings and lack of trust by reminding Sam that they were already going easy on Cas. Had anybody else betrayed them in quite the way he had (although Sam insisted it wasn't really a betrayal), theyd've lost their head by now.

Dean wasn't exactly letting go of his principles so much as he was tired of dancing around the subject, skirting around the subtext, add other metaphors here. When they're in the Impala, driving back from a case, Dean catches Cas judging him again. He's up in the front seat because he's done good again, though he's still just as clumsy as always. He looks back quickly to make sure Sam is still asleep before, without any explanation, he slips his hand over and holds Cas's.

Cas had apparently been ready to ask some sort of question, probably about human rules concerning contact, and his mouth is still slightly ajar as he stares at their hands. He moves his around, until he can slide their fingers in between one another. Dean squeezes, hard, and Cas smiles. He lets his mouth close and looks out of the window, away from Dean, still with that big, ridiculous grin on his face. Dean smiles too, out the window, because few things in life make him as soppily happy as seeing Cas smile. Sam, in the backseat, pretends to be asleep, and actually falls asleep, with a smirk on his face. This has taken too damn long.


	2. Day 02: Cuddling Somewhere

Cas doesn't sleep very well. He's only had to on occasion, when his 'Angel mojo,' as Dean calls it, was superbly low. Normally Cas just watched over the Winchesters as they slept, even when they saw him as a member of the opposing team. They always had been, and always would be, his charges.

So it bothers him immensely on his first official night as human, after Sam and Dean have helped heal and dress and clean him, have restored him to working order, that he can't force himself to stay awake.

He sits on a chair in the corner of Dean's room. It's no offense to Sam, who's in the next door over, but Dean was his initial charge and is, arguably, Cas's best friend. Now that he has to choose which to watch over, he'll watch over the one who's more used to having Castiel as a guard. When Cas explains this to Sam, he looks bemused and turns to Dean. Dean's smirking, but doesn't say anything. Cas merely shrugs and tosses a spare blanket at Cas, "In case you get cold" he says as he exits the room.

(Temperature was the other thing Cas had yet to get used to. Once he was safely inside Dean's car, he found that he was sweating and began to tear off all his clothes. Dean nearly ran off the road as he started shouting for Cas to knock it off. Sam couldn't help but laugh hysterically, even in his weakened state. Cas had since been taught the human rules of de-clothing, and avoided doing so in the car. Neither Winchester was exactly a prude in the house, though, and as time went on Cas became more comfortable with wandering about in his boxers and a tee shirt.)

Cas watches from his chair as Dean undresses. The man is hardly shy, but he still turns his back to Cas as he rids himself of his shirt. Cas is confronted, for the first time in his memory, with the hand mark imprinted on Dean's skin.

At first, Cas thinks that it's a wound and opens his mouth to remark that they should probably clean and dress it, before it occurs to him that he's the one who put it there. Cas has to bite his lip and turn his head, gripping his cross-legged ankles tightly to keep himself from reaching out and touching the handprint. He is reminded, abruptly and without control, that Dean is what many would call a man-whore. He likes to have sex, frequently, and with a plethora of different people. And although this seems to have calmed down a lot over the years, Cas still can't help but imagine other people touching Dean on his arm, where Castiel first laid his hand to pull him from Perdition. He feels sick to his stomach and angry, both with the various women who have touched his mark and with Dean for letting others touch what Castiel considers to be more private and intimate than Dean's sex life.

But he doesn't need Dean to tell him this topic is inappropriate, especially for a late at night conversation. So Cas doesn't mention anything.

Dean is in his nightclothes by the time Castiel looks back. Dean has been observing him with an odd look on his face, and not for the first time Cas wonders if Dean can hear or read his thoughts. Not because Dean has some sort of psychic powers, but because Cas's emotions play out too easily on his human vessel.

No, on _his_ face. It is his now. Jimmy isn't there anymore, and hasn't been for a long time.

"You ready for your post, Mr Night-Watchman?" Dean asks. Cas doesn't understand the reference, if there is one, but nods anyway. Dean flicks the lights off and settles down in his bed.

Cas squints through the darkness, waiting for his eyes to adjust, but they never do. He supposes that part of the luxury of Angelic powers was night vision. Just another advantage Cas had to, and did, lose.

He gets up and feels his way to Dean's dresser, leaning his back against it and squinting up at Dean's sleeping form. He's not sure how Dean manages to fall asleep so quickly, but he hears the slight nasal congestion in Dean's breathing as he snuffles and exhales through his mouth. Cas is pleased that watching Dean sleep is no less fascinating as a human than it was as an Angel, even if he has to rely on other senses to "see" his hunter.

His hunter. Possessive pronouns were another thing Cas was told to work on. As an Angel, they made sense. Dean and Sam were his charges, his people to take care off. Referring to them as his anything was at least somewhat acceptable. But Cas was a human now. People might get the wrong idea if Cas went around referring to Sam, Dean, Kevin – any of them, really, as anything specifically belonging to him. Except, perhaps, as _his friends_ or _his family_.

It doesn't take long for Cas to lose all feeling in his rear end, and he shifts uncomfortably. The floor isn't exactly hard, but it isn't comfortable either. He huffs in annoyance at the weak nerve endings considered a pride and joy of many human beings. He shifts minutely closer to Dean, and decides to experiment: he folds up the blanket Sam has handed him, and sits on it.

Cas wishes he had his night vision back, so he could count Dean's freckles. He wanted to know if the hunter ever lost any, or ever gained any. He wanted to know which ones were real freckles, and which were just skin blemishes too small to count. He wanted to know if Dean's cheeks got pink when he slept, or if blushing really was just a product of emotion. He wanted to see Dean smile in his sleep. But most of all, he wanted to be able to see Dean's dreams. He'd never taken advantage of that situation when he'd had the power to do so, and he almost regretted it. But only almost – nothing would be worth losing Dean's trust, and Cas had done that so many times already. And yet…

Cas was human now, so his ability to enter Dean's dreams was a thing of the past. He still had his imagination, though, and could pretend to sneak in on Dean's dreams without actually doing so. What was Dean thinking about? Food? Booze? Women? Monsters? Cas was almost certain it was pie when Dean made a small, satisfied noise in the back of his throat.

Cas imagined a dream for himself, in which Dean was introducing him to all different sorts of pies. Cream pies. Ice cream pies. Fruit pies. Soon, the waking dream became a sleeping one, and Cas's head hid the wall with an audible _thunk_.

Dean awoke as though he'd never been asleep, a trait held to high importance by every hunter Dean had ever met. He knew it wasn't some sort of supernatural being, though, at least not anymore. He'd been waiting for Cas to fall asleep, and he finally had. Dean smiled through the darkness at what he could see of the crumpled figure of his friend. He switched on a lamp at his bedside table, and leaned to pick his sleeping friend up.

When Cas awoke, he was no longer on Dean's bedroom floor, but in the moderately comfy guest bed in the room next to Sam's.

* * *

Cas started to like sleeping after that night. He didn't do it all the time, but he looked forward to it all – cat naps, power naps, being knocked out on cold or pain medication, and naturally long – or short – sleeps, whether awakened by an alarm clock or a Winchester or a loud noise or nothing at all.

Cas kept a dream journal for fun, and at the end of each week he let Sam read and interpret his dreams. Dean shook his head in mock-disgust the first time he saw Sam analyzing Cas's dreams. "Ya'll are like a bunch of twelve-year-old girls," Dean commented. Charlie, who had just come back from some sort of conference – or was it convention? – slapped Dean on the arm before leaning in to read over Sam's shoulder.

Cas had all sorts of dreams that confused him. Most were good and innocent, like his pie dream and made Dean cringe uncomfortably as Charlie and Sam let out loud, obnoxious cooing noises. ("Maybe I should make you two friendship bracelets," Charlie suggested. Dean lobbed a wadded-up napkin at her, which she deftly avoided.) Many of Cas's dreams were obscure and made no sense – like a dream he'd had about a flooded school infested with mermaid-termites that the boys had to exorcise by having Charlie dress up as one of them and dance to some Spanish song about cockroaches. Dean and Bobby liked that one a hell of a lot.

There were dreams, though, that Cas couldn't put into his dream journal. There were dreams where he woke up with a jolt, panting, and his legs cramped from the surprise of waking up. These were the sorts of dreams Cas couldn't remember after waking up, and only wrote down what happened afterward. Every once in a while, Cas would also have a dream that left him sweaty and sticky, his knuckles hurting from grabbing so tightly onto the sheets beneath him. When he logged the after-effects of this dream, he questioned his need to see a doctor. Sam, respectfully, did not share these dreams with anyone, and promised to explain both types of dreams to Cas at a later date. On the last day of his fourth week of keeping the dream journal, Cas had his first nightmare.

He dreamt he was running down a darkened school corridor. He, Dean, and Sam had split up to look for spirits they needed to exorcise while Kevin, Bobby and Charlie did research in a big van out back. The three were bickering in Cas's ear – he must have been holding a cell phone or something, because he could still hear them – but he couldn't find the Wincesters anywhere. There was a sudden crash, and Cas slid over to his right in time to see a row of tables, all on end, fall over onto Sam. Dean was torn between trying to rescue his screaming and bleeding brother and continuing the Latin.

As soon as the lines were all read and concluded with "Adios, bitch," Dean knelt to Sam's side, and turned to Cas, calling for help. Only Cas couldn't move. He was frozen – not cold, but stopped. He couldn't even get words to leave his throat, and though he tried to scream and respond to Dean, nothing he did would work. The spirit, which had been diminishing, came back and fell over Dean, and Dean screamed as he was attacked by the ghost which had now morphed into Leviathan. As Dean screamed and tried to tear away, he kept shouting Cas's name, over and over again.

"Cas!" Dean shouted. But that wasn't dream-Dean, that was real-life Dean hovering over him as Cas thrashed around on the bed. "Cas, goddamnit, wake up!"

Cas was splashed in the face with water and opened his eyes with a loud gasp. Sam, hair all askew, stood with red-rimmed eyes in front of him, empty glass in his right hand.

"I'm sorry," Sam said. "You just…weren't waking up."

Cas couldn't find the words to say that it was all okay. Dean was still gripping his bicep, and Cas was still panting. Sam looked up at his brother and mouthed, "what do we do now?"

"Why don't you head back to bed, Sammy? You look like you could use the hours." Sam glared. "Don't give me that look. I'll take care of Cas." Sam grumbled something sarcastic that sounded like _yeah, I bet you will_, as he shuffled out of the room. "Scoot over, Cas," Dean demanded, once his brother was out of ear-shot. Cas scooched, and Dean sat down on the bed next to him. "You wanna talk about your nightmare?"

Cas shook his head, then paused. He wet his lips and rasped, "It just seemed so real."

Dean nodded. "Yeah, that'll happen to ya, from time to time." He looked down at his friend, still blinking at the ceiling. "You gonna be okay to go back to sleep on your own?"

Cas wanted to say yes. He didn't want to be seen as fragile or weak by Dean. He could stand it if Sam or any of the others saw his vulnerability, but he knew Dean would see this weakness as a bad thing and couldn't stand to have Dean's opinion of him change. _Again_.

Still, he didn't think he could afford to lie completely, and turning his head to the left he decided on a middle road. "I am afraid of falling back asleep."

Dean made a noise of assent, and stood to turn of the light. Cas flinched in the darkness, muscles clenching up. "Cool it buddy, or you're gonna give yourself a Charlie-horse." He was surprised to feel Dean crawl into bed beside him and wrap his arm around Cas's stomach. Cas's breath caught in his throat, and he let his hand cover Dean's, relaxing back into Dean's embrace. He expected Dean to give him some sort of speech about not ever telling anyone ever about what they were doing right now, but the speech never came.

"I hate being human," Cas said by way of apology.

"I know," Dean responded sadly.

Cas licked his lips again, trying to choose his words carefully. "I don't want to be weak."

Dean let his thumb over take Cas's, and squeezed their hands against his stomach. Cas took the simple gesture to mean _you're not_, even as Dean said simply, "Join the club."


	3. Day 03: GamingWatching a Movie

Every once in a while, they need to take a day or two to just relax and enjoy what little life they all have left. Sam tends to favor museums on these days, although when Dean gives them an entire weekend off Charlie drags Sam out to Comic-Con. Sam's fairly certain she didn't obtain the tickets through legal means, but with their style of life who is he to judge?

Jody and Meg like to spar on their days off, and their preferred fight of choice is fencing – although how much in handy these skills will actually come is a frequent topic of conversation that both women politely choose to ignore. Garth mostly spends his free time re-organizing his lists of contacts and checking up on cases he's labeled "Works in Progress," which have their own folder in the trunk of Garth's car. Dean prefers to spend his off-days working on the Impala, or on the other cars in Bobby's scrapyard. Cas mostly follows Dean around like a lost puppy, much as he always has and probably always will. He's learned a lot about cars, and once or twice Dean has actually guided Cas through working on his baby. Kevin sulks in his room and refuses to talk to anybody. On the rare occasions in which he does eat, he drags a bowl of cereal to his cave of a bedroom and places the bowl and spoon neatly outside the door to be collected by Cas (who, really, is too nice for his own good).

It's on one of these days off that Dean and Cas find Gabriel. Well, Dean and Cas actually run into him. Most specifically, Dean is attempting to teach Cas how to drive when they run over Gabriel.

To be fair to Cas, Gabe (that's what they call him now, since he's lost his Angel-mojo as well) was lying in the middle of the road. At Dean's insistence, Cas was putting "the pedal to the metal" and concentrating on the horizon. Which might be the worst driving advice anyone has ever received, Sam reflects when the two are telling the story to the group. Once Cas felt something hit the front tires of the car, he literally slammed on the breaks. Dean hopped out to see what they hit, but Cas was too anxious to move, knuckles popping out absurdly white against his pinkish skin. Dean managed to drag Gabe out from under the car and get him situated in the backseat, but then had the fun task of booting Cas to shotgun.

"How did he survive that hit?" Meg asks, eyes wandering to the unconscious form taking up one couch.

Dean shrugs. "Guess that's the perks of being an Archangel, ain't it?" He turns with a smirk to Cas, who isn't taking this mishap in quite as much stride as Dean. Or, really, with any stride at all whatsoever.

* * *

Gabe is back in black and glad to be human again, although he looks like he got the shit kicked out of him. His transformation from supernatural creature to human has been flawless, although Sam's blood-sugar tests on the guy show that he needs to cool it with the sweets. Bobby puts Gabe on a strict diet and he goes about pouting for months. He gets over it, in the end, but he's not pleased about it.

It seems everyone is expecting Gabe and Cas to grow closer, now that they're once again living under the same roof. (Well, a similar roof; they've had to split people up from house to house. Not everyone can live at the bunker, not everyone can live at Bobby's.) Jody and Bobby look at Cas's back as he retreats from the foyer at the sound of his brother's laughter. "I thought having some kin to converse with would be good for the boy," Bobby admits. Jody sighs and goes back to drying the dish in her hand. Dean doesn't really need the cue to go check on his friend, but Bobby nods at him anyway.

Cas's room has become something of a mystery to Dean. It's not that he hasn't been in it so much as he can't figure it out. Some areas of the room are spotless, and others are cluttered. Cas's desk, for example, is neat and organized. Sam's managed to rustle up a computer, and it sits nearly untouched on the wooden surface. There's a pink post-it note on the corkboard backing that lists the password Sam set up for Cas's login. Cas's few personal effects – watches, a ring, and the like – are also organized into specific groups only Cas can interpret. Yet his bed looks like a tornado hit it, the trashcan is overflowing, and the bedside table is littered with half-open and half-read books.

Cas is sitting on his bed with his head resting on his knees. Dean can tell he's trying hard not to cry. That's been happening to him a lot lately, and he knows part of it is just the culture shock and emotional change that comes with losing such a big part of your personality – Angelic heritage, in this case – but it's still worrying. Cas isn't a crybaby.

"It's frustration," Cas explains in answer to the unasked question. "I'm not sad, I'm just –" He licks his lips and shakes his head. "I'm so angry, and I don't understand how Gabriel can take this whole change so well. He had more to lose than I, and yet you'd think he'd been planning the fall this whole time."

Dean doesn't know what to say to this, so he doesn't say anything. Instead, he pulls a deck of cards out from the nightstand and starts dealing a round of Go Fish. It's a bit of a childish game, but Cas likes it, and Dean'll do anything to make Cas smile like he used to.

* * *

How Kevin got a hold of the old Playstation-2, they will never know. Regardless, it's become the main attraction on their island of misfit toys, and everyone's had a run to Game Stop for a riffle through their used game bin.

Charlie came back with Final Fantasy XII, which the group though nobody but her would play until they caught Kevin at it at three o'clock in the morning. It turns out his insomnia is to be held accountable for his grumpiness and anti-social behaviors. It's fucked with his sleep schedule so much that he can't function by the light of day, and is wide awake by the time the sun goes down. Bobby comes back with some sort of football game that he, Dean, Jody, and Gabe use to play against each other and decide who's making dinner. Gabriel picks up a copy of Kingdom Hearts, ensuring that he, Charlie, and reclusive Kevin become fast friends as they picker about world progression. Sam isn't really interested in the machine, but Meg manages to convince him to go a couple rounds on some snowboarding game with her. Dean is shocked to even think it, but Sam actually seems to be enjoying himself.

Everyone is really anxiously awaiting Castiel's pick, however, because he's the wild card of the group. He could pick something incredibly sweet and innocuous, or something off-the-wall and vaguely inappropriate. Gabe is hoping it's _Bully_, but Kevin's betting on something more like _The Sims_. Sam's sure it'll be _Spyro_, but Meg thinks he's more of a _Crash Bandicoot_ sort of guy. What Cas eventually picks surprises everyone except Dean.

Dean is also the only one of the group who sits down to play _Silent Hill 2_ with Cas. He explains that the rest are all chicken shit, since this game is supposed to be the scariest of the series. Cas is confused by the notion that Meg, a demon, would be scared so easily by a video game. Dean can't explain that one, and simply shrugs in lieu of an explanation.

"You won't get scared too, Dean?" Cas asks.

Dean laughs and shakes his head. "Given what we see every day? It'll take a lot more than some pyramid-headed bastard to scare me."

But several times throughout their installments, Dean nearly goes back on his words. It's not so much that the game itself is scary, as the implications of madness sometimes hit a little too close to home. It's worth it, though, to hear Cas's gasps at the occasional cat scares; to hear his absurd theories on the most minute of details; and to be there for him to lean against when he jumps at every odd noise.


End file.
